external hard drives

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i dont suppose any of this applies, because the hard drive must be just an empty thing...but a friend had one that was partitioned. that got me to wondering how did it get partitioned? can we partition one if we buy it without partitions or alter it? can we choose whether to make it fat32 or the other kind?

i am dithering over installing linux...first step get something to store my stuff. then i have to ponder should i or even could i change the partitions in my hard drive and if so, what happens to the DOS when i format the drive? is the DOS somehow not related to the hard drive? sorry for my ignorance...

it occurred to me that is DOS is MS wont i still have problems with bill gates even after i wipe out windows? would it be feasible or even possible to replace the DOS?

i guess i should google how to build a computer...why does there have to be a DOS? how to get rid of it if it doesnt get erased during formatting and you want to switch it with something else? how can you put the DOS into the hard drive if it wont turn on because it doesnt have an OS?
this is really worse than pondering what happened before the big bang...

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@salima,

Unless the external hard drive was shipped partitioned. And you can definitely change the partition map of the hard drive using Disk Management in Windows Vista or 7, or Disk Utility in Mac, diskpart in Linux.

If you use Linux or Mac, you probably want to keep it FAT32 so it has read/write capability with Windows. DOS is dead, FAT32 still works with modern hard drives up to 2TB.

You shouldn't need DOS, if you want to have access to basic computer operations, a bootable USB or CD/DVD of Linux or the Windows Installation CD would work.

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@salima,

[QUOTE=salima;169932]can we partition one if we buy it without partitions or alter it? [/QUOTE]Yes.

I'm about as far from being an expert as one can get on this subject, but from my understanding, to partition a hard drive is simply to separate or divide the space of the hard drive into sections. For example, my HP computer comes with a partition. Instead of getting a back up disk, a small section of my whole hard drive is partitioned off from the rest, and it's in that small partitioned area that all my original files that came with my computer is kept. Never is there a change made to that area. It's called the D drive (or my back up drive).

The rest of the hard drive is referred to as the C drive.

In conclusion, my entire hard drive has two main areas (because of the partition). Thus, my hard drive includes the D drive and the C drive.

If I partitioned off another area, I'd then have three areas. All I'd have to do is determine how much of the C drive I wanted to allocate or dedicate to something else and label it.

I Hope it's right, and I hope it helps.

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@salima,

Salima, many of the new Linux distros can be run from a CD or DVD without making changes to your hard drive. That way you can "test drive" them and see if you like 'em or not. Many of these new distros also come with a very nice graphical installation (that includes the partition manager), so you can choose the way you want it to install (leave windows on or wipe it out.)

Feel free to PM me if you have more questions.

Oh yeah, I second the FAT32 format, it'll leave you greater flexibility.

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@salima,

Partitions only make logical drives out of a single hard drive, and are very useful for larger physical drives (especially when you want to defrag or run checkdisk or do a virus scan). Having one logical drive for your operating system and applications, another one for back up, and yet another one for data storage improves the performance of whatever operating system you use (it's the same scurrying arm reading the files no matter what system you use).

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